


Mentirosanta (or, being translated, Deerlie Beloved): An Ode to Red America

by TheLillie



Series: the rainbow-painted tragedies [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Bilingual Character(s), Death, Deer, Español | Spanish, Hispanic Character, Mythology References, Native American/First Nations Legends & Lore, Original Fiction, Other, Religion, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-10 03:11:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20520989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLillie/pseuds/TheLillie
Summary: All the headlights lit up were a few feet of dusty road, anyway, with some rocks and cacti in the periphery. And all the dusty road did was point straight forward, and all María had to do was keep her chancla pushed firm on that gas pedal and her hands wrapped tight around that worn leather steering wheel.Then the headlights caught something new, a stag standing in the middle of the road, and María’s breath seized and her heart stopped and her chancla rammed onto the brake pedal.





	Mentirosanta (or, being translated, Deerlie Beloved): An Ode to Red America

**Author's Note:**

> ironically i wrote most of this in england. my home sweet home is utah and there's no desert anywhere near england and i missed it dearly while i was there

Her parents named her María, not after la Virgen de Guadalupe but after La Magdalena, the disciple of the living God, the first to see Him risen, the most steadfast of His followers. Her parents were blessed with twin girls and named them Marta y María, with the hope that the first would be a hardworking homemaker and that the littler would choose the better part. One daughter to be a prosperous wife, the other to be a holy saint.

Her parents were easily disappointed. Marta proved to be far more interested in building a home than keeping it tidy, and at that, more interested in building a skyscraper than a home. And María, ay de mi, mala María stole her father’s truck one day and drove out of town, drove out onto the highway, drove all the way out into the desert.

The desert was a hundred thousand miles across, though María didn’t know in which direction. With her beaded sandal pressing the gas pedal all the way to the floor, it would still surely take days before she saw another human being. No one but her had been here or ever would be here in ages—the road was untended and unused, choked with dust that stuffed her nose even with every window shut tight. Before the sun had set, she’d been close enough to cities to see their golden little lights winking and snickering at her, but now the sun was gone and the night was dark and she could only see her own headlights.

And all the headlights lit up were a few feet of dusty road, anyway, with some rocks and cacti in the periphery. And all the dusty road did was point straight forward, and all María had to do was keep her chancla pushed firm on that gas pedal and her hands wrapped tight around that worn leather steering wheel. She could let herself take one hand off the wheel for a moment every now and then, to wipe away the tear stains on her cheeks, but ay, those tears had been all been dry for ages now.

Then the headlights caught something new, a stag standing in the middle of the road, and María’s breath seized and her heart stopped and her chancla rammed onto the brake pedal. Her arms and legs and her papi’s truck shook and cried at the stop, as the speed they’d been going at caught up to them like an abuela’s slap on a disobedient rump. Then the truck lurched backward and settled down, and María’s heart beat again.

The stag was still, staring. His eyes glowed white into María’s.

María stared back for a moment. Then she grimaced and scowled and punched the truck’s horn.

“Move it, puerco!” she screamed. “Outta the way!”

The stag didn’t seem concerned by the fact that he’d almost died just now, or that María could very well still run him over. He cocked his head to the side without blinking. There was a jingling as he moved—there were bells tied to the tips of his massive antlers.

María huffed and gave up on trying to scare the stag away. Her chancla moved back over to the gas pedal.

The stag bowed his head and his bells tinkled.

“Where are you trying to go?” he asked in a deep, young voice.

“Nowhere,” María answered. “I’m just going on this road and you’re blocking my way.”

“This is not the right road for you,” the stag said solemnly.

“What do you know?” said María.

“I know the sun will rise soon,” said the stag. “I know you will want to be on the right road when it does.”

“This is the only road for miles, and I’m not turning back,” said María.

The stag lifted his face and stretched his neck and raised one long, long leg. “The right road for you is too narrow for wagons, and is yet too new to see. You must use your feet and follow me.”

María’s feet were on the floor now, not on either pedal, and her hands hung loosely on the bottom of the steering wheel, and her heart had not slowed. “Why should I believe you?”

The stag lowered his leg, but did not lower his head. “I speak the truth.”

“But you could be lying about that.”

“Yes. I lie often.”

“So why should I follow you?”

“Because I will lead you to the right road.”

Ay de mi, sí, María had been lied to more than enough in her life, and she had trusted those liars more than she should have. But she had nothing to lose now, did she?

So she turned her father’s keys and the headlights and the engine went off, and the desert was silent and dark. The stag’s eyes still glowed—they were giving off their own light, not just reflecting María’s. María took the keys into her hand and opened the door and stepped out, and her beaded sandals hit the ground hard and sand clouded up around them.

After a second for her eyes to adjust, the desert wasn’t entirely dark—the moon was half full and the stars were crowded and noisy, and they dyed the whole sky and earth blue. Except for rings of black around the stag’s white eyes, everything was blue, even María.

“Okay, puerco, I believe you,” María said, shutting the door and shoving her father’s keys into the back pocket of her denim shorts. “I guess I could use a right road.”

The stag tossed his head and his bells jingled extra loud, and his eyes turned away from María and he began to proudly step away from the truck. “Then come along.”

What choice did she have but to follow?

The stag was much, much taller than María, who had always been short anyway. Just one of his long, long legs was nearly as tall as her whole body. But he didn’t walk faster than she did, she didn’t have to do much to keep up with him, she only walked naturally behind his shoulder and he stayed close beside her. 

Together they walked to the beginning of sunrise, when the dark dark blue turned into periwinkle, and then into lavender. In the new light, the stag’s eyes glowed less, but didn’t turn black. He was white-eyed and brown-bodied, and the bells on his antlers were silver.

María had nothing silver about her, nor white, save perhaps her teeth and the whites of her eyes. She was all brown, a darker brown than her father and sister but lighter than her mother and the stag. In daylight, in city light, her hair was blackish-brown and her cheeks were goldish-brown and her lips were reddish-brown and her hands were brownish-brown.

In early morning desert light, her cheeks and lips and hands were pink and her hair was purple. Her denim shorts were purple, too, a pale heather on her lilac legs. Only the soles of her sandals stayed brown.

“What is your name?” the stag asked.

María looked sideways at him. “What, you tell me you know the right road for me but you don’t even know my name?”

“What is it?”

“María,” she said. “But don’t expect me to ask your name.”

“My name is Awi Usdi,” the stag told her anyway.

“Yeah, right,” María scoffed.

“Do you know me?”

María shoved her hands in her pockets and kicked the sand. “We did a bunch of little projects on Native American myths in fourth grade. Awi Usdi’s like a god or something. A little dream guy that does magic.”

“Sí, y María es una santa del Señor.”

“You’ve been able to speak Spanish this whole time?” María accused, stopping and turning. “How come you’ve just been talking in English to me?”

Awi Usdi stopped, too, and looked at her. He blinked his white eyes and lightly shook his head, bells chirping.

“How come you’ve just been hearing English?”

“What’s that s’posed to mean?”

Awi Usdi didn’t answer. He blinked again. Then he turned his head around and kept walking.

María had no choice but to jog to keep up.

By the time the sun got high María got tired. Awi Usdi didn’t stop walking, though, so she leaned on him. It helped slow him down a little and helped her stay pushed along.

“I’m ex-freakin’-zausted, Awi Usdi,” she mumbled. “How freakin’ long does this road go on for?”

“One thousand steps,” Awi Usdi replied.

“I’ve already taken a thousand steps.”

“One thousand more.”

María murmured a song. “Just to be the man who walks two thousand steps to fall down at your door…”

She yawned and leaned more heavily into Awi Usdi’s short fine fur, rolling shoulder, warm mass. Her eyes closed. She did not stop walking.

“I’m bored,” she said.

Awi Usdi didn't reply. María kept humming her song.

He stopped walking suddenly and María tripped a little, but she didn't fall down. She opened her eyes and looked at him.

“What's going on?”

“There's a serpent in your path,” Awi Usdi said.

María looked down. A little brown snake was right in front of her feet, looking up at her.

“Ain't a rattlesnake or something.” María gently kicked the snake, trying to make it roll over or slither away. Instead of rolling over or slithering away, the little brown snake screeched and bit María's ankle.

María hollered and fiercely kicked and stomped until the snake let go. It flipped and tumbled until it landed on its belly, then it scrawled off the road and into the distant sagebrush. María looked at her ankle and gritted her teeth: two teeny spots of hot red red blood stuck out on her skin.

She looked at Awi Usdi. He tilted his head, and the bells tinkled.

“Whatever,” she said, shaking off the blood. “It'll heal. Let's just keep walking.”

She stepped forward, uncaring. Awi Usdi waited for a moment, then followed her. Her blood stayed on the sand. Little droplets scattered like a spray where she'd shaken, dark red red on light orange red. Bigger droplets dropped, two by two, in almost-perfect lines, with every step she took.

By the time the blood stopped dropping the sun was beginning to set again. And María was so tired she fell down.

Without a word Awi Usdi nudged her with his antlers and their now-discordantly ringing bells. She managed to sit up a little, and with his help she stood. He knelt beside her. She dropped herself over his back. With her legs over each side and her body against his neck and her head between his ears, he started walking again.

“Can't we just stop for a little?” María complained. “Aren't you tired, too?”

“No.”

“Are you lying?”

“No.”

María closed one eye, rethinking. She'd asked him “are you not tired.” If he wasn't not tired, that must mean he  _ was _ tired.

“Are you tired?” she tried.

“No.”

“I asked 'aren't you tired’ and you said no, and I ask 'are you tired’ and it's still no.”

“Are they not the same thing?”

“No, they're—” She stopped. He'd tricked her. “Okay, fine.”

“You said you were exhausted. Rest.”

María slumped. “Where are we even going?”

“Shhh. Rest.”

“I'm not gonna be able to sleep.”

“I didn't say sleep.”

She fell silent and squinted up at the moon. It was still half full. The space around her was loud, insects and animals crying for space and love and fear. She blew out a breath without opening her mouth, rippling her lips.

True to her word, she didn't sleep, but she did stay quiet as Awi Usdi kept walking. And he kept walking, through the next sunrise, and through the next sunset. And the next, and the next. And the next and the next and the next, until María lost count of the days they'd gone by. 

The day in the desert was quiet. The night was loud. The day was just sun and sizzle and steps; night was a trillion stars and chittering owls and skittering lizards and bats and toads and rats and the half-full moon and the wind through the sagebrush and cacti. Every now and then the quiet or the loud would be too much for María, and she would sing or hum for a while, whatever song or non-song popped into her head. The Beatles. Britney Spears. Hamilton. Selena. Cartoon theme songs from Nickelodeon.

Awi Usdi didn't know any of María's songs. But every now and then, if the mood struck him and if the song was easy enough to catch on, he would join in on the chorus. His singing voice was much higher than his speaking voice. And María would laugh at him, and every now and then he would laugh along.

And then they would be silent again. And he would walk along, and she would tiredly lean against him and ride.

Every now and then, María would decide she wasn't too tired to walk anymore, and she would try to climb off Awi Usdi's back. She would fall down the moment both feet were on the ground. Awi Usdi would kneel beside her and nudge her back to sit atop his body.

Eventually she accepted that she wasn't ever going to be able to walk, at least maybe until they got to whatever was at the end of this road. So one night she kicked her chanclas off, one and then the other, and turned backward to lay with her back against Awi Usdi's. The moon was bright as a lamp and still half full.

As long as she was on his back, Awi Usdi's rhythm never slowed except twice: both abrupt stops for a serpent in the path. For the first one, they waited in silence until the serpent departed.

“Diós mio, just go around it,” María said at the second one.

“I shouldn't step off the path.”

“Step over it, then.”

He just waited. Eventually the snake slipped away.

Every now and then María's snakebite would dry and scab over. She scratched at it until it bled again, dropping twin spots of red red to the glittering sand.

“Tell me the truth, Awi Usdi,” María said when the sun was low and her twin red spots had become streams. “How long have I been dead?”

Awi Usdi shook his head. “What makes you think you're not alive?”

“Just tell me.”

“You died the moment your papí's truck hit the stag in the road. His antlers came through the windshield.”

María looked up at the silver bells on the tips of Awi Usdi's horns. They were not silver, but shards of glass and steel.

She coughed, almost a sob.

“Where does this road lead?” she asked, panic edging her sentence. “If we turn around and run it back, will I come back to life?”

“No.”

“Tell me the truth!”

“María, callate,” Awi Usdi said, turning to her with one white eye. “Está tranquilo. Estás lo mismo que estoy yo.”

“No quiero estar como tú. Quiero ir a mi papí's truck! Take me back home!”

“María, mira tu cabeza.”

María stopped yelling and touched a gentle hand to her head. It was wet. She drew her hand back down below her eyes. It was red red red.

When she looked up at the stag, he was red red red too.

“No quiero estar muerta,” she said softly.

“Y porqué quieres vivir?” the stag asked.

“I got to tell my family I'm sorry,” María said. “Papí's gonna find his truck and be so mad I crashed it.”

“You don't think he'll be sad that he lost his daughter?”

“He's still got Marta.” Her tears were bitter.

“Y tu mamá?”

She scoffed. “Mamí walked out when I was ten. You should know that sort of thing!”

“Then porqué quieres vivir? En serio! No me importa tu papí's truck!”

“Well, a mi no me importa lo que a ti no te importa! Necesito vivir porque neces—necesito…” She held her hands out, palms turned in and fingers splayed in front of her shoulders, and shook them up and down. “Necesito por...I need to—”

“¡Digame en español!”

“I CAN'T!”

The scream echoed across the empty desert. The sun was nearly ready to touch the horizon.

María grabbed two fistfuls of the stag's fur and used it to push herself down onto the ground. Her snakebit ankle buckled and twisted it the second it hit, and she landed in a backwards heap after it. Her neck and shoulder were bleeding on top of her ankle and head. She tried to push up on her elbows to stand, but fell again. She tried to roll over to push up from her front, but fell on her face.

She pulled her knees forward and curled up her hands under her forehead.

“I can't,” she wept. “I can't, I...I lost…”

The stag stepped close to her and bowed and touched his nose to her head. His legs buckled too, and he lay down heavily beside her. His antlers rattled, in perfect time and harmony with María's sobs.

With a deep breath in, María lifted her face just enough to touch her lips to the tip of the stag's soft nose. Softer than she was, softer than she'd even been when she'd first arrived.

“Lo siento, puerco,” she whispered, her tears falling onto his eyes. “Te quiero.”

“Ay, de mi, no, María. Te amo,” the stag replied. He blinked, and the tear that ran a trail through his fur was larger than María's alone. “Lo siento. Lo siento, lo siento, lo siento.”

His eyes closed, and his antlers gave one last single high note, and then both were silent.

* * *

His parents named him Alonso, not after anyone important but just cus they heard it on TV and liked the sound. His friends and older siblings called him Lonnie as a kid, but now as a grown-up he was trying to go by Al. Al was what it said on the name tag next to his cool shiny new police badge.

Except he didn't feel like a cool shiny grown-up Al right now, standin’ out in the middle of buck nowhere in the middle of the buck night while the chief was getting yelled at by some Mexican dude thirty yards back. He just felt new and awkward and dumb and maybe a little spooked out here in the dark.

The chief said something to try and calm the Mexican dude down, and the dude started yelling louder. Alonso put his flashlight between his teeth and his hands in his pockets. He'd only been out here for like five minutes and he'd already pretty much forgot what they were looking for.

His flashlight dangled and wiggled a little; it was pointing at the ground instead of out over the whole landscape. Down there on the ground it stopped on something colorful. Teal or turquoise or whatever that color was called.

Alonso took the flashlight out of his mouth and looked closer at the thing—a lady's sandal with some funky beads on it. It didn't look super old or dusty; it'd probably been there for an hour at least, a day at most. Alonso lifted the flashlight a little more. There, the other sandal, a few feet further forward.

A shadow was just beyond the shoe. Alonso shone his flashlight right on it.

“Holy shit,” he blurted. It was a big-ass deer carcass, all bloody and curled up on the ground, and its eyes were glowing under his light's beam. He moved the beam a little to see the ends of the tall antlers. They were bent and broken and tangled in shrapnel that matched some damage from the pickup they'd been checking out. Must've been what caused the crash. Now they just needed to find the missing driver—

Alonso turned his light back down to the deer's face.

“Holy shit!” he blurted louder. 

There was the driver, crouched nose-to-nose with the deer, just as bloody and just as dead. A barefoot chick with dark hair and supershort jorts. Her eyes were open, but didn't glow.

“Chief!” He yelled over his shoulder and scuttered back from the gore, but didn't let it leave his light. “Over here!”

The chief’s light and a few others from the team converged on the two corpses. Alonso kept backing up til he and the chief were shoulder-to-shoulder, staring at the mess in front of them.

The Mexican dude strode up. “¡Ay! Es María! Putá!”

Alonso didn't know much Spanish, but he did know “putá” means “bitch.” But the dude didn't seem mad, necessarily—more panicked than anything. He was running toward the dead chick.

“Sir, can you identify this woman?” the chief called to him, stepping forward. Alonso stepped with her.

The dude didn't listen. He grabbed the deer's antlers and hefted it away from the chick. Its head rolled and lolled.

“Sir!”

Alonso winced, for probably the same reason he winced when visiting any of his uncles’ cabins. Deer were cool animals. It felt bad to see them just shoved around and treated like junk.

“María, María, María, estupida,” the dude said, kneeling and pushing the chick’s bloody hair away from her bloody face. “María, mi vida—!”

“Sir, if you could step back please!” The chief stepped forward again, but someone pulled Alonso back.

“Let her handle him,” whispered the someone—Bridget, an officer just a teensy bit less new than Alonso. “You as weirded out by this as I am?”

He was, but he wasn't gonna show it. “Girl stole her dad's truck and hit a giant deer and wrecked. Pretty self-explanatory.”

“How'd they get all the way over here, though?” Bridget said. “There's no footprints or anything. Plus the crash probably killed the girl and the deer both on impact.”

“It's not that far,” Alonso shrugged, pointing back at the truck. “Maybe the impact just threw them.”

“And they landed perfectly like that? Her hands were, like, folded like this. Like she was praying.”

“Dude, we're not detectives. We're just the cleanup. Somebody else'll figure it out.”

“What kind of an attitude is that? What are you even doing there?”

Before he could answer, a loud scream startled him. The Mexican dude was up on his knees and yelling wordlessly at the desert. The chief was a couple paces back from him now, hands nervously raised to each side of her chest.

Alonso sympathetically bit his lip, one hand in his pants pocket. Poor guy. Just lost his truck and his daughter at the same time. Though obviously one of those was worth more than the other.

But his scream didn't sound sad, quite—still mostly panic. It had more anger in it than before. Really, the closest thing to sadness Alonso could hear in it was searing, red-hot disappointment.


End file.
